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None Means None (Not Atheist, Agnostic, Unbeliever…)

By Elizabeth Drescher

…number of those who self-identify as religiously unaffiliated. Take the 36-year-old nonprofit director from Chicago who describes herself as “something like an atheist… most days.” She insists that being an unbeliever has no bearing on her almost daily prayer practice: Do I need to believe in God to say that I pray? No. I just pray. I focus my intention on the gratitude I have for a meal, or a friend, or a member of my family. Maybe it’s instinct…

Creeping Shari’ah… Ahem, Excuse Me… Biblical Law

By Julie Ingersoll

…he 4300 inmates already held within faith based programs by increasing the number of programs from four to six. While inmates in these facilitates choose the faith based programs over other options, it’s not, as proponents like to argue, fair to say that they choose to be there. Opponents of the plans argue that inmates in faith based programs enjoy a number of perks and better facilities than other inmates. But whatever the case, Scott’s plan wou…

How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative

By Cody J. Sanders

…gely worse)―and remains a cornerstone of the funeral industry a century-and-a-half later. When the first modern cremation was conducted in the U.S. in 1876, burning the remains of a loved one was an unintelligible funerary practice. No one at the time could have predicted that the practice of cremation would become the chosen method of body disposition for 54.8% of the U.S. population today. Jessica Mitford’s famed economic critique of the funeral…

National Review’s Kevin Williamson Comes Out Against Daughters, Misunderstands Science

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…rceived by many as espousing virulent, mean-spirited sexism; There is a non-trivial number of men who actually love their daughters and are neither disappointed they exist nor convinced that it means they’re low-status males; There is a non-trivial number of human beings who are unrepentant daughters and/or fallopian tube havers and/or cardigan wearers; There was a Republican president in recent memory who had two daughters; There are social conse…

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Overthink the New Pew Data’s Impact on Politics

By Sarah Posner

…than denominationally). They asked, “Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian, or not?” Thirty-five percent of all U.S. adults said yes to that question. That figure includes evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Orthodox Christians. What are the potential effects of these changes politically? Before you do your secularist victory lap, here are fi…

Dutch Treat: Betsy DeVos and the Christian Schools Movement

By Peter Laarman

…rew up hearing exactly that kind of talk. Betsy DeVos happens to be the now-very-public face of what has long been a quiet but very powerful drive for taxpayer-supported religious schooling that has been carried on by one of America’s least-understood ethnic tribes, the Dutch Calvinists of the Upper Midwest. By my count, nine of the thirteen board members of Christian Schools International, a kind of clearing house for the movement, have Dutch nam…

RDPulpit: Israel in Gaza: Right but not Smart

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

…Palestinians? The first step is for the world to demand an immediate cease-fire. That cease-fire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by the United States. Its terms must include the following: A. Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs, or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and cooperates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that attempts to break this cease-fire from territory c…

Forget Right or Wrong

By Elizabeth Drescher

…Burning Man, to wholly idiosyncratic practices such as completing paint-by-number paintings of The Last Supper. Feeding the Poor, Housing the Homeless A 7-year study with nearly 15,000 undergraduates at 136 colleges and universities across the country by Alexander and Helena Astin of UCLA’s Center for Spirituality in Higher Education provides some clues to the shaping of contemporary American religious practice. The Astins’ work has shown that at…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…kind of movement that might be attracted to make its mark on a liberal anti-gun crowd on what many have noted is Massachusetts’ Patriots’ Day. The 26-mile course of the marathon was meant to honor the 26 victims of the Newtown school shooting, with a different victim recognized at each mile marker. Massachusetts, like Connecticut and several other New England states, has recently enacted tougher gun legislation and its representatives are strong s…

ABC’s Hit Sitcom Black-ish Does God, Pushes Theological Respectability

By Anthony B. Pinn

…an American as is embracing the idea of God. African Americans aren’t a one-theological-note people. Questioning or rejecting the idea of God doesn’t emerge out of an effort to be “white.” Rather, it comes from a desire to make sense of injustice in light of religious promises gone unfulfilled. African Americans have a long history of encounter with injustice and just as substantial a history of probing what ongoing injustice says about theologica…